“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now look at another remark, made far more often. “You must use your abilities. I know you are highly gifted.” That meant “You are highly gifted as a writer.” Ruburt did not have to follow that suggestion either, but it also fitted in with his intents. He had his reasons for following it. The most careless remark in any situation is not careless. That is the nature of communication.

Both of you use suggestion individually and together to suit your purposes and your beliefs. You yourselves, had you the time and inclination, could trace such issues as they operated in any area through the years. You felt Ruburt’s psychic abilities, particularly in the beginning, so extraordinary, once you accepted them, that you each felt they must be protected—not only from himself, until you understood the abilities, but particularly from anyone who might scoff, ridicule, or attack. You felt in any case to some extent that those with any creative abilities had to so protect themselves.

You would have a kind of isolation from the world. You did not like galleries, nor the give-and-take with the world. You waned a situation where you could each write and paint relatively undisturbed. Ruburt’s relative fame almost upset the applecart, so further measures were taken by both of you. I want it understood that I am using you both as examples here, for such conditions operate in any situation. You began to accept more physical responsibility for the house, and Ruburt let you. In a manner of speaking, you encouraged him to become more dependent in that way, while encouraging him to use his mental and psychic abilities. For these he received verbal reward. He went along, you see, for it suited his purposes also.

Ruburt constantly tells himself he cannot walk properly. It is reasonable for him to say that now he is not walking properly. The ability to walk properly is his, however. He can walk properly. He has hypnotized himself into believing that he cannot. You have helped reinforce that suggestion, for reasons that should now be obvious.

Now, you take a person gifted as a writer and constantly apply the suggestion that to the contrary the person cannot write. That person will soon stop his efforts. He will do no writing at all after a while. He may write his name on a check, or scrawl an inadequate letter to a relative, and his very handwriting might even deteriorate. The writing ability is still there, though his performance is as impeded as Ruburt’s is in his walking.

When you were discussing the letter from the young English gentleman, Ruburt was impressed with his progress. You said “But he was walking,” meaning that Ruburt was not. Ruburt is walking—as poorly as our hypothetical writer is writing. His walking is impaired, but the ability is there. Your world is a world of suggestion, for suggestion implies directions, communications to act or not act in certain directions.

He was relaxed this morning to some extent, allowing his abilities to flow, and any psychic experiments he tries now will be beneficial from many standpoints. “Hypnosis” experiments, again, will free your energy flows, both of you. Suggestion operates as an organizer, bringing you from Framework 2 exactly what you want. Your purposes have changed. You now want Ruburt to be flexible physically, to be physically agile. You must alter the suggestion, then, that Ruburt primarily, and you secondarily, have been giving. I will have more to say about suggestion Saturday. For it applies in other than verbal terms, of course.